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PubMed1999

Experience with the loading and transport of fuel assembly transport casks, including CASTOR casks, and the radiation exposure of personnel.

In 1997 and 1998, six spent fuel assembly transports started from the nuclear power plant Gemeinschaftskernkraftwerk Neckar (GKN), using CASTOR-V19 casks. Professor Kuni of Marburg University challenged the statement made by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS)) based on accepted scientific knowledge, according to which so-called CASTOR transports present no risk, either to the population or to the escorting police units. This paper shows that the collective dose during the loading of the CASTOR casks amounted to 4.5 mSv (gamma and neutrons) per cask at the most, and that the maximum individual dose amounted to 0.26 mSv. In addition to these doses, the collective dose during handling and transport must be considered: this amounted to 0.35 mSv (gamma and neutrons). The dose to the police escort was <0.1 mSv (gamma and neutrons). In the light of these circumstances, this report is presented on contamination determined during the transport of CASTOR casks and of other spent fuel casks. The controls of spent fuel transports carried out since 1978, mainly with NTL 11 spent fuel casks, revealed that about one fifth of the transport casks which left the GKN with a surface contamination of <4 Bq cm(-2) (limit for surface contamination), presented degrees of contamination >4 Bq cm(-2) upon reaching the Valognes/Cogema terminal. However, transport casks coming from French plants also revealed degrees of contamination >4 Bq cm(-2), as well as 'hot spots'. No such contamination was found on NTL 11 casks transported from the GKN to Sellafield. Neither was any increased contamination found upon the arrival of CASTOR-V19 casks transported from GKN to Gorleben or Ahaus. The partially sensationalist media reports were inversely proportional to the actual radiological relevance of the matter. The German Commission on Radiation Protection (SSK) confirmed that the radiological effect of such contaminated spent fuel transports is negligible.

France↗
PubMed2002

Radiation protection of people and the environment: developing a common approach.

The problem with the current ICRP system of radiation protection, particularly for regulators, is that it fails to differentiate between the application of justification and optimisation to people in the circumstances of medical care or as part of a workforce, compared with their application to members of the general public in an environmental setting; plus the fact that it also fails to address the issue of potential impacts on the rest of the environment in any meaningful way. But if these deficiencies are to be addressed, it will be essential to consider how protection of both people and the living environment can be achieved within a broad philosophical framework, using complementary approaches, based on the same underlying scientific knowledge. This paper briefly examines some of these issues, and offers some suggestions for developing a common, or even a combined, approach. It draws upon recent suggestions made by the ICRP itself with regard to radiological protection, plus current activities-on several fronts-to provide an explicit basis for environmental protection.

Environment↗
PubMed2003

International radiation safety standards.

The system of international safety standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is described with explanations as to the purpose of each level of the hierarchy. There is a system of committees that advise the IAEA and approve the safety standards and one of these committees is the Radiation Safety Standards Committee (RASSC). The Committee meets twice a year (the last meeting was 24-27 March 2003) and this note outlines the current situation with respect to published safety standards documents at the fundamentals, requirements and guides levels and the status of documents under development. Guidance on how to find more information and to keep up to date on the development of documents is provided. The forward plans of the IAEA in this area are discussed briefly.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed2004

High radon exposure in a Brazilian underground coal mine.

The main source of radiation exposure in most underground mining operations is radon and radon decay products. The situation of radon exposure in underground mining in Brazil is still unknown, since there has been no national regulation regarding this exposure. A preliminary radiological survey in nonuranium mines in Brazil indicated that an underground coal mine in the south of Brazil had high radon concentration and needed to be better evaluated. This paper intends to present an assessment of radon and radon decay product exposure in the underground environment of this coal mining industry and to estimate the annual exposure to the workers. As a product of this assessment, it was found that average radon concentrations at all sampling campaign and excavation sites were above the action level range for workplaces of 500-1500 Bq m(-3) recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection--ICRP 65. The average effective dose estimated for the workers was almost 30 times higher than the world average dose for coal miners.

Air Pollutants, Occupational↗
PubMed2005

Personal photon dosemeter trial--Devonport Royal Dockyard.

To establish an understanding of the operational responses of various personal dosemeters employed at Devonport and to assess new types of dosemeters, a photon dosemeter trial was conducted. Most day-to-day exposure is to relatively low dose rates. Therefore the suitability of each dosemeter for use within the relatively low Devonport dose rate environment has been assessed. The Panasonic TLD demonstrated a good representation of the dose within the medium to higher gamma energy ranges with an unexpected under-response at lower energies. The optically stimulated luminescent dosemeter showed a varied response within a degraded (60)Co environment. With consistent under-response, the NRPB TLD and film badge were found to generally be unsuitable for sites such as Devonport. The Harshaw TLD demonstrated a good representation of the dose. The RADOS RAD80 and QFD fail to meet current best industry standards. However, the QFD is the only direct reading dosemeter suitable for use where intrinsically safe equipment is required. The RADOS RAD52 and SAIC PD 2i show a reasonable representation of the dose received but should be adjusted to read within an operational (60)Co environment. Direct ion storage and Thermo [corrected] electronic personal dosemeters showed good representations of the dose. Inherent characteristics combined with the associated systems led to the conclusion that these dosemeters should be employed for preference.

England↗
PubMed2005

Radiological safety assessment of Brazilian industrial facilities with electron accelerators.

Industrial electron accelerators are used by eight installations in Brazil, with a total of 14 machines generating electron beams. These facilities are classified into categories I or II, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) system. In category I are included the facilities with an integrally shielded unit with interlocks, where human access during operation is not physically possible owing to the configuration of the shielding. In category II are included the facilities with a unit housed in a shielded room that is kept inaccessible during operation by an entry control system. Of the 14 accelerators operational in Brazil, 11 belong to category I and three to category II. In the present work a methodology for the assessment of the radiological safety of these accelerator facilities was developed and applied, mainly on the basis of specific recommendations from the IAEA. The main safety items were evaluated at those eight installations. According to the results obtained here, no inadequacies were observed at the three installations in category II, from the radiological safety and radioprotection points of view. Nevertheless, two out of the five installations in category I showed several deficiencies. Most of these inadequacies have been corrected during this work, and the rest are in the course of being corrected.

Brazil↗
PubMed2005

A respiratory model for uranium aluminide based on occupational data.

As part of an epidemiological study, doses from intake of radionuclides were estimated for workers employed during a 52-year period at the Rocketdyne/Atomics International facility in California. The facility was involved in a variety of research programmes, including nuclear fuel fabrication, spent nuclear fuel decladding, and reactor operation and disassembly. Most of the documented intakes involved inhalation of enriched uranium (U), fission products, or plutonium (Pu). Highest doses were estimated for a group of workers exposed to airborne uranium aluminide (UAl(x)) during the fabrication of reactor fuel plates. Much of the exposure to UAl(x) occurred early in the fuel fabrication programme, before it was recognised that intake and lung retention were being underestimated from urinary data due to an unexpected delayed dissolution of the inhaled material. In workers who had been removed from exposure, the rate of urinary excretion of U increased for a few months, peaked, and then declined at a rate consistent with moderately soluble material. This pattern differs markedly from the monotonically decreasing absorption rates represented by the default absorption types in the Human Respiratory Tract Model (HRTM) of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). This paper summarises the findings on the behaviour of UAl(x) in these workers and describes material-specific parameter values of the HRTM based on this information.

Air Pollutants, Radioactive↗
PubMed2005

The development of the UK radon programme.

The natural radioactive gas, radon, is responsible for the largest component of the radiation dose received by the average UK citizen. The risks of exposure to radon have been demonstrated and quantified in epidemiological studies of those exposed at work and in the home. In the UK, measures are in place to identify and help control the exposures in those houses where levels are highest, to limit levels in new buildings and to control exposures in the workplace. This paper outlines the development of the programme, with special reference to the identification and remediation of homes with high radon levels.

Air Pollutants, Radioactive↗
PubMed2006

Cancer consequences of the Chernobyl accident: 20 years on.

26 April 2006 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. On this occasion, the World Health Organization (WHO), within the UN Chernobyl Forum initiative, convened an Expert Group to evaluate the health impacts of Chernobyl. This paper summarises the findings relating to cancer. A dramatic increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has been observed among those exposed to radioactive iodines in childhood and adolescence in the most contaminated territories. Iodine deficiency may have increased the risk of developing thyroid cancer following exposure to radioactive iodines, while prolonged stable iodine supplementation in the years after exposure may reduce this risk. Although increases in rates of other cancers have been reported, much of these increases appear to be due to other factors, including improvements in registration, reporting and diagnosis. Studies are few, however, and have methodological limitations. Further, because most radiation-related solid cancers continue to occur decades after exposure and because only 20 years have passed since the accident, it is too early to evaluate the full radiological impact of the accident. Apart from the large increase in thyroid cancer incidence in young people, there are at present no clearly demonstrated radiation-related increases in cancer risk. This should not, however, be interpreted to mean that no increase has in fact occurred: based on the experience of other populations exposed to ionising radiation, a small increase in the relative risk of cancer is expected, even at the low to moderate doses received. Although it is expected that epidemiological studies will have difficulty identifying such a risk, it may nevertheless translate into a substantial number of radiation-related cancer cases in the future, given the very large number of individuals exposed.

Body Burden↗
PubMed2006

Collective dose-practical ways to estimate a dose matrix.

It has been suggested that collective doses should be presented in the form of a 'dose matrix' giving information on the breakdown of collective dose in space and time and by population group. This paper is an initial attempt to provide such a breakdown by geographic region and time, and to give an idea of associated individual doses for routine discharges to atmosphere. This is done through the use of representative per-caput individual doses but these need to be supplemented by information on the individual doses received by the critical group for a full radiological impact assessment. The results show that it is important to distinguish between the different population groups for up to a few hundred years following the discharge. However, beyond this time the main contribution is from global circulation and this distinction is less important. The majority of the collective dose was found to be delivered at low levels of individual doses; the estimated per-caput dose rates were significantly less than 10(-5) Sv y(-1), a level of dose felt to give rise to a trivial risk to the exposed individual.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2006

Naturally occurring radioactive material from the aluminium industry--a case study: the Egyptian Aluminium Company, Nag Hammady, Egypt.

The activity concentrations and the gamma-absorbed dose rates of the terrestrial naturally occurring radionuclides (226)Ra and (232)Th were determined in samples of bauxite, alumina and aluminium dross tailings industrial waste (used to produce two types of alums) using high purity germanium (HPGe) gamma ray spectrometry. The bauxite and alumina are imported by Egyptalum (The Egyptian Aluminium Company, Nag Hammady, Egypt) from Guinea and India. The activity concentrations in the bauxite range from 29 +/- 1 to 112 +/- 6 Bq kg(-1) for (226)Ra, and 151 +/- 8 to 525 +/- 12 Bq kg(-1) for (232)Th, with mean values of 62 +/- 8 and 378 +/- 50 Bq kg(-1), respectively. With respect to alumina and tail, the mean values are 5.7 +/- 1.1 and 8.4 +/- 0.8 Bq kg(-1) for (226)Ra and 7.2 +/- 1.6 and 10.7 +/- 1.2 Bq kg(-1) for (232)Th. Potassium-40 was not detected in any of the studied samples. The measured activity concentrations of (226)Ra and (232)Th in bauxite are higher than the world average while in alumina and tail they are lower. As a measure of radiation hazard to the occupational workers and members of the public, the Ra equivalent activities and external gamma dose rates due to natural radionuclides at 1 m above the ground surface were calculated. The external gamma-radiation doses received by the Egyptalum workers are 97, 409, 8.5 and 12.7 microSv y(-1) for the Guinean and Indian bauxite, the alumina and tail, respectively, which is well below the recommended allowed dose of 1 mSv y(-1) for non-exposed workers.

Aluminum↗